El Salvador Bitcoin wallet onboard four million users

[Wiwo]

As the need for Bitcoin mainstream adoption keeps rising across the world El Salvador one of the first countries around the world to have adopted Bitcoin as a Legal tender developed a native Bitcoin wallet which their initially offered $30 bitcoin raindrop to they citizens through their native wallet sometime late last year, have announced the number of users in the database which have amounted to a swooping 4 million registered users which to me is a great milestone to the overall bitcoin adoption.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/el-salvador-s-bitcoin-wallet-onboards-4m-users-with-netki-partnership

[uneng]

4 million wallets means 4 million bitcoin adopters, as KYC is required in order to use Chivo and claim the 30$ airdrop and all these adopters are only from El Salvador, so even a small country can contribute a lot to bitcoin adoption. These are positive points in my opinion.

On the other hand, these news are a bit sensationalist, because they exclude the possibility many people who created bitcoin wallets with Chivo did this only to claim the $30, cashout to fiat and stopped using bitcoin. Cointelegraph should also include the currently percentage of active wallets from the total of 4 million.

[Poker Player]

Well, it doesn't sound like such good news to me either. It's neither good nor bad. Nothing that we could not expect from El Salvador, where Bitcoin has been considered legal tender and a giveaway is given. What would be good news is that other countries would follow its lead, as rumored. By the way, there were some problems with money disappearing from wallets. Does anyone know if they have been solved? I guess if we haven't heard anything else it was a one-off problem.

[Darker45]

4 million wallets means 4 million bitcoin adopters, as KYC is required in order to use Chivo and claim the 30$ airdrop and all these adopters are only from El Salvador, so even a small country can contribute a lot to bitcoin adoption. These are positive points in my opinion.

On the other hand, these news are a bit sensationalist, because they exclude the possibility many people who created bitcoin wallets with Chivo did this only to claim the $30, cashout to fiat and stopped using bitcoin. Cointelegraph should also include the currently percentage of active wallets from the total of 4 million.

I agree, they're not necessarily Bitcoin adopters. Or what does it mean to be an adopter? The airdrop is worth $30 upon creation of a Chivo wallet account and anybody who gets it has the option to have it in Bitcoin or in USD. Many are probably withdrawing the free money in USD. Since every El Salvador citizen is qualified for the $30, expect that many will download, create an account, and pass KYC with Chivo without any intention whatsoever to use Bitcoin. Even those who are against Bitcoin could qualify for the airdrop. They don't even have to be Bitcoin supporters.

I guess it would be more interesting to count the active Bitcoin users out of those millions who downloaded the wallet.

[Kakmakr]

Something worth mentioning that are actually of more value are this..and I quote : " The platform also claimed that it had facilitated the compliant onboarding of 70% of the country’s previously unbanked population. "

They also gave a $30 incentive bonus for the wallet owners and this represents about 10 percent of the average monthly income in El Salvador. 

The downside of this technology are the stripping of all Bitcoin anonymity, because this OnboardID system link the Chivo Wallet with all your private details.

"OnboardID easily handled scaling requirements, thanks to its incredibly fast processing speeds. In less than 15 seconds, the system can validate passports and National IDs, run sanctions checks, screen watchlists to ensure that the person creating the account was the same person as on the identity document, and return results to Chivo. "

Source : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220118005185/en/Chivo-Wallet-Identification-Verification-Partner-Netki-Successfully-Onboards-4-million-users-in-45-days-to-Facilitate-El-Salvador%E2%80%99s-Official-Bitcoin-Adoption

[pooya87]

The number is more interesting when compared to the El Salvador's population which was 6.4 million according to Google and that puts 4 million users to 62.5% of the population.
But I'm afraid this is not something that we can celebrate since this is a closed source custodial wallet that the government controls and more importantly the majority of this wallet's users went there to only receive the free $30 not so much to use bitcoin.

[maria1110]

4 million users? Wow! What's the population of El Salvador? Around 6 million? That's pretty large percentage!

I guess national policy is the most powerful push for massive adoption of crypto. Hope more countries would become positive towards this industry. Crypt is afterall the future trend.

[passwordnow]

It's less than a year and yet they've managed to have that number of users for their wallet. I'll look at the positive side that there are more people that are knowing bitcoin there in El Salvador. As curiosity starts, they can eventually leave that wallet and look for an open source wallet for which they can use and be comfortable of using without following their government's order of using that chivo wallet.

4 million wallets means 4 million bitcoin adopters

It is possible there that one person can own 2 or more Chivo wallets but if the stats say that it's one wallet per person then that's really a lot of users in a short period of time.

[Jawhead999]

4 million users? Wow! What's the population of El Salvador? Around 6 million? That's pretty large percentage!

I guess national policy is the most powerful push for massive adoption of crypto. Hope more countries would become positive towards this industry. Crypt is afterall the future trend.

Also their government offer $30 to each citizens, of course everyone will love free money by just creating account on Chivo wallet. But yeah, we don't know how many active wallet on there... it's possible people just creating account and withdraw the $30, that's not a adoption IMO since he's still trusting fiat and not using Bitcoin anymore.

Well, government power always the most powerful to control and persuade their citizens... since that's make it's completely legal and no worried anymore.

[Taskford]

4 million users? Wow! What's the population of El Salvador? Around 6 million? That's pretty large percentage!

I guess national policy is the most powerful push for massive adoption of crypto. Hope more countries would become positive towards this industry. Crypt is afterall the future trend.

Also their government offer $30 to each citizens, of course everyone will love free money by just creating account on Chivo wallet. But yeah, we don't know how many active wallet on there... it's possible people just creating account and withdraw the $30, that's not a adoption IMO since he's still trusting fiat and not using Bitcoin anymore.

Well, government power always the most powerful to control and persuade their citizens... since that's make it's completely legal and no worried anymore.

Even though we don't know yet what is the real number of their actual users still its good to see that their are 4 million people onboard on their official bitcoin wallet since even if they just withdraw and exchange their received bitcoin to fiat still they are now getting an idea about bitcoin and how they can transact it correctly. Maybe for now the number of users decline(maybe we don't know if it really is) after that what good thing is they have active wallets which they can use anytime if they are been decided to use the currency what the government adopted on their country.

[yazher]

That's actually a lot but I wonder how exactly they know the numbers? based on their local exchanges? what if the other citizens don't use their local exchanges? I think the numbers are not exact but maybe there are more users we just don't know how many are they but this kind of result is nice and promising since the beginning was unsure and we see the good result now. 2022 is another Bitcoin year for sure, not only in El Salvador but in some countries in South America as well because as of now they are sure about the good result of what they were doubting in their neigboring country.

[DdmrDdmr]

Going over their population’s pyramid distribution by age for 2020 (1), out of the 6,3 M inhabitants, around 2M would be under 18 (therefore excluded from being able to use the Chivo wallet according to the terms of service). The 4M mark therefore accounts for nearly all the population, no doubt enticed by the 30$ bonus, but a hallmark nevertheless.

A recent stat did point out some initial data in terms of usage, indicating that 74,3% had not used BTC to pay for anything yet (Table 52 - September through to December 2021), and out those that did, 65,7% use it infrequently (one time shot or once a month – Table 53). These numbers are though related to a system that is being set in motion, and ideally we’d get to see how they evolve over the coming months.

(1) Note: Aggregate Population for 2021 is very similar to that of 2020.

That's still a lot considering these users will encourage as well their close family or friends to get along with it for sure it's just a matter of time before it gets doubled or more than that. <…>

Considering that the population is around 6,4 M, they’d have to procreate a hell of a lot to reach the 8M mark, and then turn them all into 18 year olds …

[rhomelmabini]

4 million wallets means 4 million bitcoin adopters, as KYC is required in order to use Chivo and claim the 30$ airdrop and all these adopters are only from El Salvador, so even a small country can contribute a lot to bitcoin adoption. These are positive points in my opinion.

That's still a lot considering these users will encourage as well their close family or friends to get along with it for sure it's just a matter of time before it gets doubled or more than that. All eyes are set on them since it really on their hands if other nations may opt to adopt to legalize Bitcoin on their countries.

[rodskee]

As the need for Bitcoin mainstream adoption keeps rising across the world El Salvador one of the first countries around the world to have adopted Bitcoin as a Legal tender developed a native Bitcoin wallet which their initially offered $30 bitcoin raindrop to they citizens through their native wallet sometime late last year, have announced the number of users in the database which have amounted to a swooping 4 million registered users which to me is a great milestone to the overall bitcoin adoption.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/el-salvador-s-bitcoin-wallet-onboards-4m-users-with-netki-partnership

But what is that 4 million wallet/users when after receiving that 30$ they will abandoned that wallet and care no more?

this is something like an airdrop that after taking their gain then they will forget about that and move to another.

I will make believe in this value if those wallet are created on their own beliefs and decision and not just because there is a promise amount.

[Ararbermas]

A brilliant idea to increase the adoption immediately. Big thumbs up for El Salvador. As the matter of fact who will gonna ignore such offer.? Its free tho, wherein all you need to do it's either use it to buy stuff or holding. For me for sure if it will happen here in my country even those who don't know about bitcoin will gonna rush to get free bitcoin. Lol  so it's not surprising that El Salvador really convinced the whole community to join the event..

[kryptqnick]

70% of the population is an impressive number on its own, but what's especially interesting is that these were allegedly people belonging to the unbanked population. If this is true, it means that for millions of people Bitcoin is their first introduction into digital payments, and that it really shows how Bitcoin can be an alternative to banking (with custodial wallets in this case, of course, but still). What's still of interest is how much these people use Bitcoin now, compared to using cash (the USD). If they have wallets but don't use them, it's not a big change, even though it's still something. If they are moving to digitalization via Bitcoin, it's a big deal. And with the majority using it not more often than once a month, I suppose it's more like they formally have access to Bitcoin than true adoption happening. But perhaps we should give it time.

[goldkingcoiner]

As the need for Bitcoin mainstream adoption keeps rising across the world El Salvador one of the first countries around the world to have adopted Bitcoin as a Legal tender developed a native Bitcoin wallet which their initially offered $30 bitcoin raindrop to they citizens through their native wallet sometime late last year, have announced the number of users in the database which have amounted to a swooping 4 million registered users which to me is a great milestone to the overall bitcoin adoption.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/el-salvador-s-bitcoin-wallet-onboards-4m-users-with-netki-partnership

It seems to me that it might take a long time for the older generations to get onboard with the whole bitcoin is money idea. We might see a gradual linear adoption instead of a rapid adoption. Within the next 5 years I think El Salvador will get most of their people onboard as Bitcoin fans, assuming we don't see whales abusing the situation with superficial dumps and scaring the newbie bitcoiners into selling for a loss, which would put Bitcoin in a bad light, instead.

[btc_angela]

Hmm, the wallet is local only to El Salvador, so by definition, it's not really adoption as the wallets in for El Salvadorian only, (correct me if I'm wrong).

But in any case, there could be next countries after El Salvador that will follow and then another country. So bitcoin might be in the continue growth as far as users, although it doesn't mean that the price though is going to spike. So it's obvious that there is no correlation.

[slaman29]

So okay guys, do you think it makes sense you have 4 million users and not a single one of them has come to forum or Twitter to tag or talk to the people all looking and reading at them?

Again I hate to be bearer of bad news. I love Bitcoin too but this type of news seems fake or at least inflated to big numbers.

[AakZaki]

Hmm, the wallet is local only to El Salvador, so by definition, it's not really adoption as the wallets in for El Salvadorian only, (correct me if I'm wrong).

But in any case, there could be next countries after El Salvador that will follow and then another country. So bitcoin might be in the continue growth as far as users, although it doesn't mean that the price though is going to spike. So it's obvious that there is no correlation.

I don't know the truth, but statistically the data I think is a real wallet address. I don't think it's cloning with one user at the same time. It's very difficult to track because it's anonymous. Although in the end it is possible if the wallet is owned by one person it will only end up in one wallet. Although I know there may be some people who take advantage of the weaknesses of the system. They take advantage by having multiple wallets with different identities. This seems similar that many spamers use on these forums to get rewards. But at least with the legalization of digital currency in data I think 33% of the population there definitely uses that wallet.